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Socio-economic status

Roma communities are highly diverse in terms of the economic situation, and thus living conditions. Next to the unquestionably wealthy Roma who often spectacularly express wealth, there are entire communities living in poverty and penury. The long-term effects are reflected primarily in children, deprived of basic equipment and clothes or the opportunity to go on holidays, as well as in the inability of parents to pay for commuting to school away from home, and the lack opportunity to go to secondary schools.
This is particularly true of the Carpathian Roma. The vast majority of the Roma living in the foothill areas of the Małopolska province is social welfare clientele. In the ten municipalities of the province inhabited by the Roma, 75% of Roma families received various social assistance benefits, and in some municipalities  more than 95% of Roma families received such assistance. These families are the beneficiaries of all the forms of assistance: e.g. in the form of cash allowance, free meals for school children, in-kind assistance, including the purchase of fuel. The situation is a little different in the cities of Upper and Lower Silesia, where the clusters of the Carpathian Roma live.

 

 

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